Government Executive: Federal agencies say they have yet to take steps to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting voting by mail, as the Department of Justice fights a Democrat-led lawsuit against it.

The Justice Department late Friday filed documents asking a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit and to not block the executive order on a preliminary basis because the order has not been implemented. The filings marked the Trump administration’s first effort to defend the order in court.

The March 31 order directs the creation of state citizenship lists and restricts how ballots can be sent through the mail, instructions that Democrats and election experts have called unconstitutional and illegal. It comes as Trump has seized on the specter of noncitizen voting, an extremely rare phenomenon, to demand sweeping voting restrictions.

In its Friday filing, the Justice Department sought to persuade Judge Carl J. Nichols in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia that a legal challenge is premature.

“If and when the Executive Branch takes some action to implement the Executive Order,” then a lawsuit can be brought, Stephen Pezzi, a senior trial counsel in the Justice Department’s Civil Division, wrote in a court filing.

Nichols has scheduled a hearing for May 14.

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